To Be a Father
by writingissues
Summary: Gajeel was many things, but to be someones father he believed wasn't one.


The fact its canon Gajeel wants to be a dad is something I love, so its something I wrote exploring the idea a bit ahaha. Enjoy Tho this was posted before that became canon in June.

Originally posted on March 21 2016

* * *

He wasn't a good man, the abandonment of his own father, despite knowing now years later just why it happened still clung to the back of his heart. Like a scar that never healed correctly. Of course, with her, it always seemed the perception Gajeel had of himself would always change. Thus unexpectedly making him a much better man than he ever expected to be.

Of course she would laugh at that, her hand moving up around his head as he buried his face in the crook of her neck. Pushing her bare body closer to him (so close and warm and there). Her brown eyes looking at him as best she could in the position they were in.

"You're a Good man Gajeel." Her voice was tiny and soft, high pitched but strong as it came from that tiny body of hers (so much stronger than him). "Don't think otherwise." She murmured close to his ear as her fingers brushed through his course hair, and as always it was left unsaid, that if he wasn't a good man like she claim why would she be here?

He never dared to ask.

And then Gajeel in that moment decides to believe her, turning and lifting his head up to where he could kiss her cool skin of her neck and then her collar bone, as his rough calloused hands began to run up and down her sides and hips, and then his fingers brushing the area under her belly button causing Levy to giggle as she pulled him closer to her.

' _I love you._ ' She would say humming in satisfaction as he finally just placed his hands on her hips, his thumbs rubbing circles on the bone that slightly stuck out from her thin frame. He only answered with a grunt, moving on top of her kissing her lips with his.

Gajeel never said those words and she never pressured him too knowing exactly how he felt.

Levy Mcgarden was all he needed in that moment and those in the future. Nothing else, he felt, could make Gajeel Redfox be the type of man that maybe he would have been in the beginning, if things were different.

But that would end up changing.

Some men wanted to be fathers, and some men were forced to become fathers. And there were some men that wee fathers only in name and nothing else.

To Gajeel it was a situation he never thought about or even saw for himself. Of course he should have known that would change when he got with her. Just like everything else.

She grabs his hand, so big against her small ones. Guiding it to rest over her belly, or the area under her belly button. Red eyes blinked as he processed of what she was telling and showing him. Her strong voice not hesitating as she watched him, not breaking that contact with him as she smiled; He only could tell she was nervous from the shake her small hands gave against his, how she would lick her lips as was her habit.

"A baby?" he repeated.

"A baby." She repeated as she smiled wider.

Some men just weren't meant to be fathers. Gajeel thought he was such a man, but as his tanned hand rested against the soft flat belly (he couldn't imagine just in a few months it would be swollen with a baby. His baby.) The touch caused her to giggle softly as he removed his hand then her own small hands replacing where they were. "Your baby. Our baby Gajeel." She said her voice soft like she didn't want to break whatever was happening in this moment, her brown eyes shined as he stared back up at her.

Then in that moment, the silence thin and thick at the same time as they didn't say anything, Levy leaned over her hands moving to cup his face. For a second he felt the ghost of her lips against his that caused iron dragon slayer to close his eyes and lean in.

"Our baby." He repeated as his eyes opened, watching her. There was so much he could and would and should say, but they lay thick on his tongue. Gajeel was not a man of words, they always seem to leave him or become an arresting metaphor (it was easier for some reason and she also seemed to like it). But he knew that there needed something to be said. His heart pounded in his chest and his breath hitched like he had been punched in the stomach.

He grabbed her pushing her face into his chest, his hand on her head patting it as he felt his body warm especially his face.

"Gajeel?" her voice was muffled, "are you okay?" as she pushed against him her hands on his chest, fingers curling into his shirt. For the first time since she told him the news, he smiled at her or well maybe smirked at her. Of course it caused Levy to breathe a sigh of relief, she could read him easily sometimes especially if he was in a good mood, her heart pounded more than before as he leaned down again, his hand against her now covered stomach.

"Of course I am." He whispered. The words, again, laid thickly on his tongue, he just never was one able to spill how he feel; Unless it was anger or even fear down in an angry way. Making him wonder if he was like this it would affect the kid, that he wasn't able to be there emotionally. Such things and wonders he never would have had if he was in Phantom Lord, or even when he first joined Fairy Tail. Caring, learning to show that he cared was something he learned here.

Learned from her.

It wouldn't be perfect and Gajeel knew that Levy knew, accepted that he wasn't able to put out exactly how he was feeling, outside the physical contact. That was how he talked.

Some men should never be fathers. Gajeel always thought he would be such a man, a man that was too angry and too much of everything else that he saw in Denish; Nothing that a kid should have as an old man, especially if Gajeel ended up being like his own old man.

Then again that dragon was also someone of few words only able to show how he cared in the last moments of his life.

"Are you happy Gajeel." She asked as her head was pressed against his chest, his heart hammering into her ear. Gajeel looked down at Levy, her hair was a bright blue and he wondered, vaguely, if the kid would look like her.

He hoped it did.

"Yes. So much I plan to arrest and throw ya in the slammer, until the kid is born." Levy pulled back giving him an amused face as her mouth opened, her lips then pursing into a smile that she didn't want to show to him.

"Oh yeah?" she stood up, her hands behind her back as she walked backwards, "only if you catch us first." And with that she bolted, not seeing the wolfish grin that spread across his face as he stood up then too. Finally he jumped up his feet against the couch as it fell backwards as he jumped forward.

Maybe he wouldn't be a good father. But, like many things so far in his life. Joining the council and joining a guild he used to hate with a passion, now he would die for. And also finding someone that loved him and that….well, nothing ever came from what he expected to happen, and if she was there he felt he could do it.

Now, as he grabbed her making her fall onto the ground and him on top of her, both breathless from laughter but he slide off of her, not wanting to hurt her or the kid (he wasn't sure how that worked now anyway); Levy turned to her side looking at him her face on his arm, her own arms wrapped around it as well, and she just hummed contently as her brown eyes closing.

Gajeel Redfox was never a man people would think to have a family, to be a father and a husband or even work in the council. He was a tall muscular man with piercings were his eyebrows should be, and rumors and stories that would follow him all his life for the things he did before her. And maybe they were right, but he looked at her again his red eyes drinking her in as she seemed so much more relaxed now than she was earlier.

Maybe they, he, was wrong all along in thinking that.

Gajeel didn't mind being wrong.


End file.
